Lawrence Macdonald

[1] Macdonald then travelled to Edinburgh with a letter of introduction from Graeme to the architect James Gillespie Graham.

In 1823, along with Gibson, Severn, and other artists, he founded the British Academy of Arts in Rome, of which he continued as a trustee until his death.

In the autumn of 1829, he exhibited in the Royal Institution, Edinburgh, his colossal group of 'Ajax bearing the dead body of Patroclus and combating 'an warrior' and other works; and he was second to his friend Charles Maclaren, editor of The Scotsman in his bloodless duel with Dr. James Browne, editor of the Caledonian Mercury, fought near Edinburgh in November 1829, which arose partly out of an article in the Mercury (6 November) on Macdonald's works and the Scotsman's criticisms upon them.

In the same year he was elected a member of the Scottish Academy, where in 1832, he exhibited several busts, including those of John Gibson Lockhart and the Earl of Erroll; but he seldom contributed here, and resigned his membership in 1858.

[3] In 1832 he returned to Rome, where he occupied a leading position as a sculptor, chiefly producing portrait busts, aided by his elder brother, John, and his son, Alexander.

Whilst Macdonald made statues of classical and mythological figures, all his portraiture was in the form of busts.

Supposed to be the Prayer of the Supplicating Nymph in Mr. Lawrence Macdonald’s Exhibition of Sculptures in the Literary Gazette in 1831.